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The KUT Longhorn Radio Network Presents: Mexican American Experience Collection

Audio recordings including interviews, music, and informational programs related to the Mexican American community and their concerns in the series "The Mexican American Experience" and "A esta hora conversamos" from the Longhorn Radio Network, 1976-1982.

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PROGRAM INFO

Title:
Chicano Theater
Program #
1977-12
Theme:
Culture

Series:
Theater
Host:
Richard Goodman
Guest:
Richard Goodman
Date:
Mar 9, 1977

Chicano Theater

Host Richard Goodman discusses Chicano Theatre and the ways it has influenced and reflected Mexican American Society. Goodman first discusses the life and work of Luis Valdez, the founder of Teatro Campesino, Farm Workers’ Theatre, in 1965. Valdez’ early sketches, or Actos, primarily focused on the daily life of the strikers and incorporated a variety of styles and techniques, including those from the dramas of Europe, Japan, Ancient Greece and indigenous America. According to Dr. Carlota Cardenas de Dwyer, Valdes adapted all of the techniques to his interests and aims, and in so doing reflected one of the hallmarks of the Chicano artist, who chooses which ancestral legacies to work with and adapt. Later in his career, Valdez’ work began to cover a variety of themes affecting Chicanos, including the Vietnam War and discrimination, and featured increasingly complex characters. Across the country, satellite groups performed his actos and other forms of popular theatre. Almost simultaneously, other Chicano playwrights, including Estella Portillo, were producing more sophisticated literary dramas reproduced in Chicano periodicals like El Grito. Goodman explains that while popular theatre originated in the activism of its creators, Chicano literary dramas are performed as art alone, and not as activism.

KEYWORDS

Actos
Actos: El Teatro Campesino
Agitprop
American Proletarian Theatre
Art Activism
Aztec Dramas
Bertold Brecht
Cantinflas
Carpas
Cesar Chavez
Chicano Culture
Chicano Theatre
Christian Drama
Citizenship
Clifford Odets
Comedy
Commedia dell'arte
Day of the Swallows
Delano
Dr. Carlota Cardenas de Dwyer
El Grito
Estella Portillo
Farm Workers Theatre
Femininity
Gender
Greek Drama
Guerrilla Theatre
Improv
Improvisation
Italian Theatre
Italy
Japan
Japanese Theater
La Causa
La Huelga
La Raza
Los Vendidos
Luis Valdez
Machismo
Masculinity
Mayan Dramas
Mexican Theatre
Mexico
Mike Gold
Naturalism
Pagan ritual
Patriarchy
Poets of Aztlan
Propaganda
Realism
Sacramento
Satire
Sexism
Sexuality
Sketch
Social Movement
Strike
Strike
Strikers
Teatro Campesino
Union
Vietnam
Waiting for Lefty
Youth Culture
 

Center for Mexican American Studies | Department of History | The Benson Latin American Collection

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